100 books like My Last Continent

What’s not to love about a book structured as a tree? This is a vast, episodic novel that takes traditional storytelling and turns it on its head.

A cast of characters connect through stories that grow from seed to trunk to limb. I finished this long read and immediately wanted to start again. It’s the kind of book that rewards a second or third pass. Complex, rife with science and faith and desperate longing, this book is a celebration of the tree, a clarion call to return our attention to our roots before it is too late.

One of Powers’ characters asks, “What do all good stories do?” He answers, “They kill you a little. They turn you into something you weren’t.” I think that’s true of all of these books, and most definitely this one.

If you’ve ever considered eating “sustainably” fished seafood, this book will open your eyes to the fact that there is no such thing as truly sustainable fishing. Through stories of modern-day, high-seas piracy, you’ll get a better understanding of how rogue fishing vessels will go anywhere, legal or otherwise, to make a profit. And that one of many reasons why fish species are in great decline everywhere. But this is a demand-driven problem, which means we all have a role to play in solving it.

To research my book I read lots of books about new findings in animal cognition.

Animals are smarter than science used to give them credit for, more emotional than science ever dared believe, and they even have personalities. But for me, the most mind-blowing of the many books I read on this topic was this book about the inner lives of fish.

Like so many others, I had assumed they were pretty dim-witted, and even believed they didn’t feel pain. Not so! This book explains the new science of what fish lives are like and it is truly amazing how much they are like us—and we like them.

A wry tale of financial desperation, conceptual art, insanity, infertility, seagulls, marital crisis, jellyfish, organized crime, and the plight of a plastic-filled ocean, JoeAnn Hart’s novel takes a smart, satirical look at family, the environment, and life in a hardscrabble seaside town in Maine. I am proud that Ashland Creek Press (which Midge Raymond and I founded in 2011) published this amazing novel.

Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Society, inspired the character of Aeneus in The Tourist Trail. This book was my introduction to Paul and his colleagues and the passions they share for the oceans and their residents. If you’ve watched the TV series Whale Wars then you are already familiar with the risks these volunteers take to protect whales and so many other species. Paul Watson has also written a number of books that are worth reading. Learn more at Sea Shepherd.

I love camping out in the wild, so for me reading this novel was a vicarious extended vacation.

The novel centers on a woman who escapes to Alaska with her two children and makes her way across the state in a beat-up rented recreational vehicle they call the Chateau. The fantastically flawed and appealing Josie and her two children are all wonderfully drawn. Anyone who has ever gone camping will get a kick out of all the details of life in this wreck on wheels.

The novel is not just laugh-out-loud funny; it’s also profound and deeply felt. I also wouldn’t have expected a novel that makes a compelling argument that we need to address climate change to be set in Alaska, where there’s so much untrammeled wilderness. But this novel taught me that in fact, the effects of climate change are actually more harsh closer to the poles.

Heroes… show more.

This marvelous novel allowed me to travel to the remote southwest coast of Ireland, on the Beara peninsula.

The landscape is so evocatively and vividly described that I felt as if I were hiking along with the appealing protagonist, Annie Crowe. Like me, Annie turns to walking and nature when she is depressed or needs thinking time, and boy does Annie have demons to battle! She’s a great character - both tough and fragile, a recovering alcoholic. 

On a job assignment as a public relations expert in support of a copper mine, she finds herself thrust into controversy with the local community. It opposes the mine because it would despoil this wild landscape and also endanger the nesting Red-billed Chough. I loved every detail of the walks and the cliffs and the ocean that Johnson describes.

And running throughout is a spicy thread of ancient mythology and Gaelic mysticism, which… show more.

I found this to be one of the most compelling novels I’ve read to draw me deep into the fabric of the hardscrabble life of a New England community down on its luck with the crash of the cod fishing industry.

The sympathetic but thwarted characters are all entangled in dangerous waters of one kind or another, from drug smuggling to physical danger to marital issues. I was as fascinated to learn about the economics and lifestyle of the fishing life as I was moved by the struggles of characters caught in a complex net of change outside their control. 

This is the book that made me want to write a historical romance. The protagonist, Miss Jane Fairfield, is outlandishly rich. But she can’t get married and leave her younger sister, who has epilepsy, to the well-meaning but cruel treatments recommended by their uncle, who is also their guardian. Since her money makes her an appealing target for many an impoverished rake, Jane has to work extra to become unappealing while still seeming like she’s trying to attract a man. She wears obnoxiously bright clothing, insults people with the kindest tone, and—in one desperate attempt to make a man be mean to her—takes the food right off his plate. This is a book about people trying to put you in your place and keep you small. And let me give you a hint: it’s a romance, so there’s definitely a Happily Ever After, and that includes small-minded people getting their… show more.

This isn’t a particularly party-hearty (hardly?) novel, seeing as the music nerds satirized (and glorified) are mostly just f’ed up on wax, not honey oil or absinthe or something.  It will indeed make you laugh and give others a contact high of hilarity if they’re in the same room with you.